irteen weeks in which
to pass fourteen or fifteen great Appropriation Bills, making
it impossible to deal with any other great subject except by
unanimous consent. The result is also that the Appropriation
Bills are put in the power of a very few men indeed. The
House has to submit to the dictation of the Appropriation
Committee, and cannot be allowed to debate, or even to have
a separate vote on matters which nearly the whole House would
like to accomplish, if there were time, but which the Chairman
of the Appropriation Committee, who is usually omnipotent
with his associates, may happen to dislike. On the other
hand, in the Senate, where there is no cloture rule, any single
member, or at best, a very few members, can defeat an Appropriation
Bill and compel an extra session by exercising their right
of uncontrolled debate.

Besides; people from all parts of the country like to attend
the inauguration of a new President. The fourth of March
is at an inclement season, and is apt to be an inclement day,
and it may come on Saturday or Sunday or Monday. So persons
who attend may be obliged to be away from home over Sunday,
and a great many persons have lost their health or life from
exposure in witnessing the inauguration.

I prepared a Constitutional amendment providing that the inauguration
should take place on the last Thursday in April. I have reported
this to the Senate several times. It has always passed that
body with scarcely a dissenting vote, on debate and explanation.
If that had been adopted, if the session were to begin in
the middle of November, a week after the November elections--
which could be accomplished by an act of Congress--instead
of thirteen weeks, to which the session is now limited, there
would be a session of twenty-three or twenty-four weeks. This
would give time for the consideration of such legislation
as might be needful. It would probably, also, permit the
shortening somewhat of the long session, which not infrequently
extends to July or August. But the plan has never found
much favor in the House. Speaker Reed, when he was in power,
said rather contemptuously, that "Congress sits altogether
too long as it is. The less we have of Congress, the better."

The public danger is found in the fact that there is no provision
in the Constitution for the case where the President-elect
dies before inauguration. The provision is:

"In case of the Removal of the President from Offic